Pregnant woman who died is the third ‘suspicious’ Madison County jail death this year, lawyer says

Lanekia Brown died in the Madison County Jail after an arrest for drug trafficking on I-55.

The death of a pregnant woman in a Madison County jail right before Christmas is the latest in a string of suspicious fatalities at the detention center this year, says a lawyer representing the woman’s family.

Lanekia Michelle Brown, 37, of Grenada died in late December while in custody at the Madison County Detention Center in Canton. Brown was arrested by Madison police on Nov. 26 after a traffic stop on I-55 led to the discovery of 103 pounds of marijuana, according to the city of Madison Police Department.

Brown was three to four weeks pregnant at the time of her death and had no known health problems, her mother, Margaret Johnson, first told WJTV. Johnson said her daughter died sometime on Dec. 23.

Brown’s family is still awaiting preliminary autopsy results from the Madison County coroner’s office. Grenada-based attorney Carlos Moore, who is representing the family, said that the family is considering an independent autopsy.

“It is still very early but we are doing our due diligence,” Moore told Mississippi Today on Friday. “We do find the death very suspicious.”

Brown had been charged with a controlled substance trafficking violation. Her bail was set at $1 million, according to Moore.

On the day of Brown’s death, a jail nurse had gone to check on Brown after she complained about stomach pains. “They did CPR on her over and over — still didn’t get no response,” Johnson, her mother, told WJTV. “So he just said she was gone.”

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Brown’s death is the latest sign that something is awry with the Madison County jail, said Moore, who is representing the families of two other prisoners who died during or shortly after spending time at the jail.

In early December, family members of a man named Larry Thompson, who was booked into the jail Nov. 17, took him to St. Dominic in Jackson after jailers beat him, Moore said. Thompson died a few days later, on Dec. 1.

Michelle Liu is a 2018 corps member in Report for America, a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms. Originally from College Station, Texas, she graduated from Yale University in May 2018.